This invention relates, generally, to improvements and innovations in wear guards or thimble for shielding the bights in cables from direct rubbing contact with wear surfaces which cause the cable material to fray and ultimately break if not replaced. More particularly, the invention relates to cable wear guards and their use to protect the bights in cables passing through apertures in railway car couplers, the cables forming parts of flexible elongated supports for supporting the glad hands on the ends of the air brake hoses.
There is disclosed in Nadherny U.S. Pat. No. 4,519,564 dated May 28, 1985, assigned to Ireco, Inc. the assignee of the present invention, an adjustable support assembly which has multiple uses, one of which is to support the glad hands on air brake hoses of railway cars from the railway car couplers. Insofar as it is pertinent to the present invention, the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,519,564 is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
In FIGS. 1 and 9 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,519,564, the glad hands on the ends of air brake hoses are shown being supported from apertured brackets on railway car couplers, with cables forming parts of the supports and passing directly through the apertures in the brackets on the couplers. It has been found in practice that the more or less constant rubbing action of the bights in the cables against the bracket apertures due to relative movement between the glad hands and the car couplers when trains are in motion, and the considerable strain suddenly imposed on the bights when cars are uncoupled and the glad hands are jerked apart, causes the individual strands of the cables to wear through and break so that the bights in the cables become frayed and the supports for the glad hands will fail if not replaced in time. Excessive wear may also occur at the bights in cables that pass through apertures in the brackets on the glad hands as a result of the rubbing which occurs between these bights in the cables and the aperture surfaces.
In accordance with the present invention, it has been found that the useful lives of the adjustable support assemblies disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,519,564 can be greatly extended by using cable wear guards or thimbles to shield the bights in cables which have previously had direct rubbing contact with the surfaces of the apertures in the brackets on the underside of railway couplers. These wear guards are of such design and construction as to allow the bight portions of the cables to freely slip within the wear guards. However, in use, the rubbing action occurs primarily between the surfaces of the wear guards and the surfaces of the apertures with a minimal amount of rubbing or slipping action occurring between the bights in the cable and the wear guards themselves.
The wear guards of the present invention are inexpensive and conveniently placed on the cables and inserted through the apertures in the brackets which depend from the undersides of the railway car couplers as well as through the apertures in the brackets on the tops of glad hands.
Accordingly, the primary object of the invention, generally stated, is the provision of cable wear guards for combined use with the supports for glad hands on air brake hoses from railway car couplers, which cable wear guards are inexpensive to produce and assemble on the cables and which serve to shield the bights in the cables from wearing engagement against the surfaces of the apertures in the couplers and glad hand support brackets and as a result, greatly extend the lives of the cables and the supports of which the cables form a part.
For a more complete understanding of the nature and scope of the invention, reference may be had to the following description of preferred embodiments of the invention taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein: